Vicious (The Villains, #1)

by V.E. Schwab

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates-brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in one another. A shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death-experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. They become EOs, ExtraOrdinaries, leaving a body in their wake and turning on each other.

Ten years later Victor has escaped from prison and is determined to get his revenge on the man who put him there, aided by a young girl with the ability to raise the dead. Eli has spent the years hunting down and killing every EO he can find, convinced that they are a crime against God, all except his sidekick, a woman whose power is persuasion and whom he cannot defy. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the arch-nemeses have set a course for revenge-but who will be left alive at the end?

• ISBN13: 9781783290215
• Publish Date: 10 January 2014 (first published 24 September 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Titan Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[ellieroth]

Original de: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

El año pasado descubrí que no sabía cuánto necesitaba los antihéroes y villanos como protagonistas. No sabía que tanto necesitaba conocer el porqué de su villanía.

VICTOR & ELI

La historia de Victor y Eli, fue la primera historia escrita por Schwab que experimenté, es un libro dirigido a adultos (no, no es porno :v), y al terminar me quede:



La única información que tenia del libro al empezarlo es que es sobre villanos y que si sentías que alguno de sus personajes te recordaba a ti o entendías sus motivos para actuar como actuaba, definitivamente tendrías que ir inmediatamente a consulta con un psiquiatra.

CON ESA PROMO, ¿COMO NO LEERLO?

Vicious es un libro ligeramente lento y no voy a negar que me saca de mi zona de confort en cuanto a narración, pero cada párrafo largo vale la pena, cada conversación, recuerdo o nuevo twist me daba la esperanza que el libro no terminara nunca.

Lo impresionante de Vicious es que tanto la escritora como la trama se la ingenian para que puedas entender perfectamente porque es que cada uno actúa de la manera que lo hace ¿son los asesinatos justificados? Moralmente no, pero que tal si... La historia me hizo cuestionarme moralmente muchas veces, y salí perdiendo la gran mayoría.

La única persona con la que puedo comparar a Victor es con Jessica Jones, en el sentido que terminan siendo los héroes porque la siguiente opción ya está ocupada. Sobre todo me gusta que Victor es a lo Batman, que dice ser solitario y no necesitar a nadie, pero termina adoptando a medio mundo en el camino. No lo dejan ser emo y cumplir su venganza en paz a uno.

When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong.

Y, Eli, bueno... Si Victor es algo así como Jessica Jones, entonces Eli es Wilson Fisk. Esa maldad enmascarada con hacer el bien, es la más peligrosa.

LO QUE NO ME CONVENCIO

Amé casi cada detalle de la trama, tiene muy pocos personajes, lo cual es bueno si eres fácil de confundir como yo. Por lo que fue en cierta forma aceptable los pocos personajes femeninos en la historia, lo que me fastidió un poco fue que el 80% de ellos termine muerto :v

Sus destinos fueron necesarios, aun así, no sé, me hubiera gustado seguir viéndolas, eran personajes interesantes. Aunque es Schwab, si no hay cadáver demolido, es probable que no esté muerto.

Vicious si bien no es una historia ligera, es un libro que es el sueño de todo escritor de ciencia ficción. Cada detalle está bien cuidado y explicado de una manera que es fácil de entender sin por eso dejar de perder calidad. No sé con qué demonio ha hecho V.E. Schwab pacto, pero quiero que me pase el número, ningún precio es mucho por cada libro que saca esta escritora.

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[nitzan_schwarz]

2015 tbr challenge + cleaning my shelves 2015

JUST POSTED ON THE BLOG 

So I'm sitting here, in front of my computer, wondering how the heck do I review this book? It's like, my mind is totally blank. What do I say that others haven't already? Where to begin?

Should I start with the fact I ended up reading this book because of peer pressure? I mean, the whole freakin' world loves Vicious (and Victoria), so I grew tired of being on the outside of that crowd. One page in and I'm like;THANK YOU, PEER PRESSURE!

Or maybe I should talk about how this book is not a "superhero story". At least not in the "hero" sense of the word. Everyone here are definitely "super powered", in one way or another (Even Mitch, whose superpower is probably being able to stand and support the lot of them and still stay alive).

In simpler terms, everyone in this story are Loki, not Captain America.


I can totally imagine Eli saying this btw

And we love them, for the same reason we love Loki (more than we love all the other characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, really). Because they're not strictly bad, and not strictly good. Because they blur the line between black and white to us as readers, and they make us think.

Because we know that under certain circumstances, they can do heroic things, and sometimes they do, andsometimes they won't. And you really can't tell what's the dominant side to them.

Are they good people doing bad things, or bad people doing good things, or just people, period? 

Here are these characters, who are just so flawed, and so broken, so far off the "right path", and so lost, and you root for them - you root for them like crazy!

(Which might say something about us, and how we truly see "heroes" and "villains". Idk. We're probably mad).

I loved Victor, who by sheer quantity of POV could be considered the MC and therefore the "good"/"right" guy in this situation. Is he, though? I mean, he does some really messed up things throughout the whole thing.

And I didn't hate Eli, either. I mean, was he kind of crazy? yes. Could I... sort of, maybe, understand where he was coming from?...... I could. I could totally see how he became what he was, and how he truly believed in it.  

And I thought Sydney was adorable and I adored her, yet I...didn't hate Serena, who on account of her actions I should. But just like Eli, I could understand how it became like this, even if I didn't accept it.

And then let's not forget Mitch, the underrated support system. Who is basically... us, the readers. He accepts the super powered around him. He knows the world ain't black and white. And still he follows.

No one fit quite perfectly into the usually "assigned roles", and that's what made this book so bloody brilliant, and this is what makes this book so viciously beautiful.

And let's not even start on the spotless writing technique! The book jumps between past and present, between one character to the other without ever missing a beat. It's seamless! Even if I hated the book, I don't think anyone can ever claim Schwab is a bad writer.

On the one hand I would gladly read a sequel... and the other, I'm super afraid of all the sh*t that would undoubtly follow... And since I wrote these words, a sequel was announced #I'mScared

[Stephanie]

This book was so goddamn amazing. The best book I read in a really long time. The characters, the plot, the writing was... man. Wow, wow, wow. I want to read it all over again.

[Amber]

Vicious was my first pick for our Book Club, and I’m so happy with it. I thought I would like it, but I wasn’t expecting to love it so much. Lauren’s enthusiasm for the book also made me a bit emotional because SHE AGREES WITH ME. Anyway, here is our discussion and thoughts regarding the book.

VICTOR

Lauren: Have we ever talked about how much I am fascinated by fictional sociopaths? Because I love them, I really, really do. Anything, be it movies, tv shows, or books, are always going to be infinitely more interesting to me if there is a well written sociopath all up in there that I can flail over. So imagine my excitement when I open this book and find that not only is Victor my special type of character, but that his sociopathy is written SO DAMN WELL it makes me want to cry. I LOVED Victor; his voice held that perfect balance between reserved and approachable that makes sociopaths so intriguing to me. He is at once terrifying and incredibly sympathetic. Basically I could just go on about Victor all day if you asked me to (please ask me to oh god please).

Amber: So, um, I’m kind of obsessed with Victor. I don’t want to say that I found him relatable, because that’s a bit of a stretch (and I’m not ready to admit that to myself just yet), but I connected with him straight away. I very much enjoyed his determination to get revenge on the person that wronged him, and it was pretty obsessive. He would do anything to meet his goal, and everyone knows that I love characters like that. I’m not going to go into the sociopathy or anything, because Lauren covered it here and in the Themes section below. Just know that Victor is an amazing character with so many different sides to him, and at his core he’s intense and obsessive. My favourite type of character, let’s be honest.

Tatum: Gonna rain on the Victor parade a little bit here because I just really didn’t like him, and I think it contributed to my overall lack of enthusiasm for the book tbh. Do I think he’s an interesting character? Sort of? To me though he was basically a sympathetic anti-hero type and that isn’t anything new or exciting really. I didn’t connect to him at all.

Read the full discussion on Books of Amber

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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VICIOUS was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2013!!! There's a reason for that, guys... Because it really is the BEST.

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My Thoughts

Let me begin with a disclaimer: Out of all 110 books I have read so far this year, Vicious is my favorite. But I want to be clear -- this isn't a case of it being one of my favorites, or favorite-by-a-very-small-margin, or anything like that. While I've read a lot of good books this year, Vicious is flat out, hands down, honest-to-God, simply and wholeheartedly my favorite book of 2013. Take from that what you will.

The above is a disclaimer because with a book this good, I have a really hard time forming actual coherent thoughts about it, let alone stringing together words to tell you exactly how much -- and why -- I loved it.

I could tell you how the characters grabbed me from the very beginning, the very first page. I could tell you how the writing, while beautiful in its own right, wasn't something to be read but something that just flowed with pure story and character and emotion. I could tell you how, while I read this book, my focus was so narrowed to whatever was happening on the pages, I could barely concentrate on anything else.

I could tell you that this book is exactly what I didn't realize I'd been craving, until it hit me right in the feels.

I always (always always) say this about books, whether I love them or not - characters are a huge deal for me. They are, really, what make or break a book for me. Ultimately, it comes down to: Do I feel anything for these characters? It's not even whether I can relate to them, though that is a plus. If I'm able to care about the characters, that's a huge win. I knew Schwab was more than capable of making me care about characters, because The Archived was so stellar in that department -- and Vicious only proved this once again.

The main duo -- villain and hero? hero and villain? ...villain and villain? -- are Victor and Eli. Extremely intelligent and practically inseparable 10 years ago, Victor and Eli used to be college roommates. When they're asked to decide what they want to research for their theses, Eli decides to research ExtraOrdinaries, or "EO's", and see what could cause those kinds of powers to manifest. (Hypothetically, of course - at first, the existence of EO's is something of a joke.) Victor researches adrenaline and its inducers and consequences. The two end up being connected, and this leads Victor and Eli into a series of experiments - on themselves - to see if they can actually turn themselves into ExtraOrdinaries. They do... and as soon as they both succeed, they turn into vicious enemies.

The narrative itself switches back and forth between two time-periods -- ten years ago, in the time before, during, and after Victor and Eli gain their EO abilities; and the present day, after Victor escapes from having been in jail for 10 years, now dead-set on getting revenge on Eli for putting him there.

It's a fairly simple concept - the convicted bad-guy wants revenge on the 'hero' who put him away, right? Well, sure. But what happens when the 'hero' has lost it, killing people because of a twisted sense of duty; and the 'villain' goes after him, not because what the 'hero' is doing is wrong, but driven by his desire for revenge? The 'hero' is getting his just deserts, and the 'villain' is doing something that might be considered right, except for the wrong reasons.

So who's side is the audience supposed to be on? There is no clear-cut 'hero' in Vicious. Neither individual is completely evil or completely good. Eli is obviously in the wrong, killing innocent people who happen to have abilities -- but he's doing it out of an insane sense of duty. Victor is cold and calculating, driven by revenge. He may be doing a good thing, stopping Eli from killing more EO's, but he's certainly not doing it for the reasons one would assume, and he's not opposed to creating his own casualties along the way.

That being said... I was Victor's from the start. I have a soft-spot when it comes to rooting for villains. I don't "root for them" in the sense that I want them to win if they're striving for something awful (obviously). It's just that I find them fascinating and I'm drawn to their characters and their intensity. I'd take Warner from Shatter Me, or Tom Hiddleston's Loki from the Thor movies, over either "hero" in those stories any day (one is more truly a "villain" than the other, but you get my point). The reasons for their "villainy" are complex, and they have a rich backstory that makes their actions rather tragic, as bad as they are -- not excusable, by any stretch of the imagination, but still tragic. Also they have that draw of being possibly-redeemable, if given the chance.

Whatever the draw, Victor was it for me.

And he's not your normal sympathetic character. He's been put through some horrible things thanks to his own ambitions and the betrayal of a friend. He's driven by revenge - an objective that is certainly not "hero"-material. But at the same time, the way he's written, I couldn't help but sympathize with his situation. Part of this sympathy probably came from his lack of what we'd call "normal human emotions" - he is so focused on revenge that everything around him is put into the perspective of "how will this help me fulfill my goal?" But the sympathy didn't exactly come from that trait itself - it came when cracks started to appear, when he opened up and let himself care, for even the smallest moments, about something -- or someone -- other than his goal.

I would never have been able to articulate this before reading Vicious, but Victor is a character I have been wanting to see for a long time. The apparent villain, thrown into a situation where he's actually doing something good, while keeping a firm hold on his calculating nature, his intensity... all that good, villlain-y stuff. You get to see from the his perspective, and not only feel somewhat justified in rooting for him and his goals, but also watch as his shell begins to crack a little, and get to root for his humanity as well.


But enough of Victor. (Oh who am I kidding, I will never get enough of Victor - but I do have to move on.) The other characters on Victor's "team" are fantastic as well. There's Mitch, Victor's cellmate and friend who escaped with him from prison; and Sydney, a 12-year-old girl who happens to get swept up in Victor's search for Eli. Sydney and Mitch are really strong characters in their own rights, and in many instances they served to humanize Victor, to cause some of those cracks in his dead-set-on-revenge attitude. (...Aaaaand we're back to talking about Victor again. Oops.)

VICTOR-RELATED AWESOMENESS ASIDE. How about we talk about the awesome building of tension? Because man. The tension. It's there from the very beginning. We know where things end up - the book opens with Victor having escaped from jail, so when the scene jumps back to 10 years ago, we know there's only one direction things are headed. But having the timelines overlapping in this way -- there's two stories, with two climaxes, all building up at the same time. One of them, we know is coming -- whatever happens to send Victor to prison, and Eli's turn for the worse... But the other -- Victor's final confrontation with Eli -- is a mystery.

You'd think with the ever-present tension, it would be a somewhat balanced read... but no. When the real tension starts amping up in the last quarter of the book, and the confrontation between Victor and Eli looms closer and closer... There's no eloquent way to put this. I couldn't handle the feels. All of a sudden, without realizing it, my whole world had narrowed down to the square foot of space where I had the book open in front of me. You would've needed a crowbar to pry that book out of my hands. The ending was intense, guys. There may have been whisper-yelling. There may have been actual yelling. There were definitely MANY FEELS.


In conclusion...

If you were brave enough to power through that entire review... wow. You're awesome. But if you weren't, that's okay. Here's what you need to know: READ VICIOUS. In all seriousness though. If you're a fan of anti-heroes, or villains who might possibly be redeemable, you need to read this book. If you're a fan of the 'superhero' genre and want to read a book that's dark and obsessively engaging, read this book. If the premise of two already-a-little-twisted individuals gaining superpowers and pitting their powers against each other sounds remotely interesting to you, read this book. If you're a fan of layered characters who twist our view of what a 'hero' or 'villain' can be, read this book.

In conclusion...? Read Vicious. Best book of 2013. Just... *shrugs* That's all I've got.



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I JUST CAN'T WITH THIS BOOK GUYS. Officially my favorite book of 2013. I just can't. Words aren't even...

Okay I'll shut up now.

Actual review to come later.